Triathlon's Attitude Problem is Going to Cost Us Places to Race

Triathlon Forum
41

Just a thought to the general topic. Could Ironman encourage community service after or before a race using worlds slots? Signup to one of a couple different meaningful service projects to the community like perhaps roadside/park trash cleanup etc. and a slot will be given away to those who show up. The city council’s can solicit projects from the community leading up to the race to publicize it and get the community to buy in.

They could also make it a free race entry giveaway but that would cost them directly.

It’s one thing to say to practice aloha. It’s another for IM to put resources behind incentivizing it.

They could also require their pro field to participate in at least one per year to race IM.

The pitch from cities to their residents being you’ve got 1000-2000 or more people coming into your community to enjoy it, spend money and donate some of their time volunteering is probably the best way to solve this issue.

42

This isn’t a triathlon problem, it’s an ironman problem. Too many US people equate triathlon with ironman and that’s another problem.

Ironman is far beyond a triathlon company, it’s not even a race organization it’s just a profit center

As such, it doesn’t and won’t do community outreach. The cut corners at every opportunity?

Anyone here do lake tahoe ? How did you feel getting left out on the swim? The people paid by ironman just did a vanishing trick leaving people to vent at volunteers. Do ironman Texas 70.3 and find they lost your wetsuit? Come back Tuesday work for you? Do you know how long they require underage school kids to stand out on the sun for less than minimum wage handing out bottles shipped in from non-local distributors and getting yelled at when some age grouper doing 20mph misses the catch.

Ironman talks about economic impact as a benefit, but if a local coffee shop, restaurant, massage service want to setup in the village, they get charged and count as economic benefit not an exchange for loss of business.

Short course triathlon doesn’t get this push back because the organiser’s do the work and even then have looped courses.

Jacksonville is not unique. Communities in The Woodlands (TX), Sacramento (CA), Lake Placid (NY), Boulder (CO), Tempe (AZ), Chattanooga (TN), Oceanside (CA), Coeur d’Alene (ID), and Cairns (Australia) report the same categories of complaints year after year.

The main complaint is that Cairns locals have criticized Ironman Oceania for “last‑minute maps” and “confusing detours.”

The common denominator? Ironman.

Is it a US problem, no it’s an ironman problem there as well. Nails on the bike course, that would be the UK and on an on.

Ironman is no longer a US company run by a legendary couple for the athletes.

6 Likes
43

You may have gotten confused if you drove up from Montreal to Mont Tremblant. In Montreal (or leaving it) you would be on Autoroute 15. This is equivalent to the US interstate system. But it’s a bit weird and you may have gotten confused. Somewhere around the town of Boisbriand north of Montreal, a regional road 117 merges with the Autoroute 15. You would not notice this if you drove up on the Autoroute 15….suddenly the road signs change colour and that 4 lane highway is a regional road. There is always a regional road option in parallel to an Autoroute for non Autoroute eligible traffic, but if there is no other road, that Autoroute turns into regional road “rules”. Meaning bikes, farm tractors and all kinds of other vehicle are allowed.

You may be using a US driver centric mindset to Quebec values (which are just different). Firstly roads are there for all kinds of traffic, unless that traffic is banned on autoroutes, and that “other types of vehicles” are punted to regional road. But if there is no regional road the 4 lane thing has to serve as the regional function.

If you go North from Mont Tremblant on the 117, it’s literally the only road going to Mont Laurier and beyond that to Rouyan Noranda and across to Ontario to Kirkland Lake and Timmins. This is literally the ONLY road through that part of Quebec and Ontario. It is the only regional road artery. As such it is only close to Montreal near Boisbriand where this turns into an Autoroute equivalent to the US interstate.

Most of the rest of Canada is like that. You can ride the entire trans Canada from coast to coast and on much of it is two lanes only. One of the most awesome rides on the trans Canada is the downhill with a tailwind ride from Banff to Calgary. Yeah, it’s a 4 lane highway but lots of people also ride it because its the only road. In 1989, I road it with a friend covering the 130km in 2.5 hrs. We had our bikes in the highest gearing almost the entire ride spinning out at 50-65 kph for much of the ride with a 60 kph chinook tailwind. I’ve also ridden the trans Canada from Quebec to New Brunswick. It really is kind of a fun ride (you get massive pulls from transport trucks too).

Its a different mindset from American Interstates. Riding on the trans Canada is a fairly common Canadian thing. No need to have loose screws to ride there. It’s the only way to ride coast to coast and lots of people do it yearly

1 Like
44

And of course the USA car dependency and 7-days a week work requirements don’t help.

1 Like
45

To be fair: this is not exclusively an IM issue. It’s been an issue for any sizable race production company over the last 15 or so years operating in the US. Rev3, Challenge, etc all had similar logistical issues, in thanks in no small part due to athlete behavior.

As others have mentioned: more often than not, race day is just the straw that breaks the camel’s back. We’ve lost the generational knowledge on how to act in some of these towns, and it shows.

IM is an easy scapegoat and for a lot of reasons, and course design is certainly one to take them to task over (which that’s a whole different article that is probably a Friday project for me). But the athlete behavior thing has progressively gotten worse in my time in the sport.

2 Likes
46

It’s all a reflection of the every increasing self entitled selfish attitudes of the general public. So many people can only think of themselves.

6 Likes
47

Not true.

1 Like
48

are you trying to argue USA triathletes are worse than the other triathletes in the world ?
or are you saying USA people are less tolerant than other people in the world?
or are you just missing that Ironman races have the same issue around the world like ironman Hamburg being forced to use a narrow course where a person died a few years ago, because locals fought the course going through their area?

49

Interestingly, with only 17 days before IMCairns,they are still taking entries for both IM and 70.3 Cairns.

50

I’ll push back though on your original anecdote. What was, exactly the root issue in the original complaint? That the guy had to wait 30 seconds until there was a safe moment to pass the cyclists? That they had to pay close attention when driving?

I get that there’s ‘we need to be gracious guests’ but these types of complaints are symptomatic of car culture in general - that people in vehicles can’t be bothered to share their space with others; that cyclists can only exist insofar as they’re not a bother to the people in cars.

And yeah, these guys vote, and complain, and that can impact whether or not we get to race at all. But the solution can’t simply be “triathletes only get to exist thanks to the whims of car drivers (or the ones that complain the loudest).”

We’re part of social fabric and we get to use the space too, you know.

(I am obviously being a bit infammatory, but part of this conversation does need to be how others do or do not share the space with us)

3 Likes
51

Alright, fair, thanks for clarification I’ll let that one go. haha.

52

No offense but I feel this is exactly the attitude problem that is discussed in the article.

As the article said, we do NOT get to use the space freely when racing - that’s what permits are for. We get special permission, we’re not entitled to send 2000 people into bodies of water and public roads at the same time, blasting through intersections etc. The reality is that while part of the social fabric, we represent like 0.5% of it. The remaining 99.5% of it (car culture, folks trying to get to work or church, the general american populus) outnumber us and hold all the political power and could squash us in one millisecond if they wanted to (literally and figuratively).

I’m not saying you’re wrong, or that the driver who had to wait 30 seconds is right. I’m saying it doesn’t really matter who is right or wrong in this situation. we as triathlon, collectively, have very little to no leverage in terms of politics or public sentiment. We should all understand how fragile the system is for us and act accordingly, rather than trying to demonstrate that the disturbances we cause to hosting communities are insignificant.

Example - there was that year that people threw tacks in the road for IMCA in Whistler. That’s how fragile it is. piss off the wrong people, doesn’t matter how, and they’ll sabotage the event and create safety risks for all athletes.

53

I’m obviously not saying that we go in and try to be a nuisance, and that, yes, generally we should make ourselves be good guests in the locations we’re in. And yes, there will always be people (as with any group) who don’t follow the rules or who don’t act as expected

My point was that no matter what we do, even with perfect behaviours (whatever that may be), there will always be a contingent of locals who complain about our presence and that this is symptomatic of the wider car culture and expectations for cyclists. Putting on an event means that there will be thousands of triathletes on your roads (sometimes outside the event) and so you will get people who complain because they feel that their right to use the roads in a certain way trumps someone else’s.

And so some of this discussion also needs to be framed in a way that recognizes that part of living in a city/area is that there will be things going on that disrupt the normal flow how things are. Sometimes its a marathon, sometimes a parade, whatever. But the loudest voice can’t always be “motorist temporarily inconvenienced”

2 Likes
55

The only thing I’m going to push back on, the “behavior” of triathletes is almost meaningless in the grand scheme of politics though. It will 99.99% come down to races filling out and meeting contractual obligations.

The gist of the whole article basically proves that. Seemingly “now” our behavior matters to keeping races? So we may only start losing races, etc? Again I’m not arguing the narrative of the article- don’t be a dick is something that is generally accepted in all walks of life. I’m pushing back on it having the degree of matterance that you guys seemingly are suggesting. I think it’s a great article to renew a basic PSA “don’t be a dick”. How about don’t put a race in 100% metro area (shocking, people hate people working out in lycra), that’s as stupid and deserving of a PSA as well.

56

I would add that there is a certain type of person who just can’t stand to see anyone doing things that they either can’t do or won’t do. This is one reason why some people get angry at people who exercise - it’s a perceived indictment of their lifestyle.

Also totally understandable that having unexpected road closures would make people mad. Also somewhat unavoidable. There’s just no way to contact every single person who might be impacted. The human mind is really good at filtering out information that seems irrelevant at the moment. “Oh a road closures 2 weeks from now? Who cares.” Then the day comes and they fly into a rage because they didn’t know…despite being told about it. It’s human nature.

We will probably never have 100% perfect community happiness when an Ironman event comes to town. A few people (on either side) sniping at each other doesn’t necessarily mean that the city was a poor host or that the triathletes were entitled, nasty guests. Remember that social media brings out the worst in people, and the nastiest ones (on both sides) are the ones who will leave a comment. It doesn’t mean there’s a crisis, or that triathletes are horrible, or that the people of Jacksonville are horrible, or that metro races are doomed to cause riots and local government collapse. It’s just…people being people, and most of the time it blows over.

2 Likes
57

Yup, with san diego rick and roll coming up, which gives more than advance notice. Yet people complain on nextdoor… the race has been running for over 30 years, you should know better by now. Might as well complain about 4th of July fireworks. As for IM Jax, its a new one do complaints are valid

58

It’s not triathlon’s attitude — it’s Ironman’s attitude. A company that uses free labor (volunteers), free resources, and free everything for its investors gains, while giving nothing back. Not to the pros, not to the amateurs, not to the host cities.

The pros get peanuts, the amateurs pay more and more for less and less, and the cities and volunteers are expected to carry the whole spectacle.

I really look forward to the day this company’s attitude finally leads to the result it deserves.

Congratulations to everyone — cities, pros, age-groupers, and volunteers — who give this company what it deserves: the finger. After more than 20 ironmanraces it is finally over for me. Challenge and local races and every multisport alternative under the sun, but with the ironman company I am done.

5 Likes
59

Could you describe the complaints about the Sacramento course? It seemed like a very good course for minimizing disruption to local businesses and commuters.

60

Eh, you can’t complain about IM being the big bad boogie man, while also confiding that you’ve done 20 of their races. IM absolutely is a business, but they also continue to have cities to host races, and they are filling them up at good numbers relative to the health of each region (US region isn’t a 3k+ “sell out” in the current tri-sphere). So are they the monster that your suggesting….let’s not go that far.

61

This is a bit bizarre.

For multiple years now Ironman has stepped up the pro compensation without any increase in added value created by the pros.

Ironman literally signs contracts with the cities to pay for closures, and police, etc. Yes cities also write a check to Ironman, but that’s literally the definition of getting something and giving back something.

Amateurs get a place to race along with enough swag to make them feel special.

Ironically it’s the select local businesses that profit from the Ironman windfall and don’t give anything back if you want to use that lens to evaluate it. But of course as their sales go up so do their tax payments.